Disruption on HS1 due to signalling problems caused by flooding in the Thames Tunnel.

[Horizon22]

I would have thought that in any competent company; both would be near the top of their manifestly forseeable operations risk assessment list with detailed mitigation planned that was slightly more comprehensive than handing out dubious leaflets, shouting wibble, putting their underpants on their head and sticking pencils up their nostrils.

Said scenarios being:

1) Channel Tunnel Shut.
2a) Line blocked between Ebbsfleet and Stratford.

(2b and 2c being line blocked between Ashford and Ebbsfleet and line blocked between Stratford and St Pancras).

All TOCs have a list of contingency plans (agreed with mutual operators and NR) for when infrastructure is not available.

Eurostar is not the same in this regard. Scenario 1 would effectively be pointless seeing as nothing can depart St Pancras. Other scenarios might involve trains turning short, but again there is the whole passport control / boarding element to consider which no other operator has. I suggest this would take (considerably) more than 24h to get into motion, if indeed it is even possible post-Brexit.

You are then limited to utilising alternative transport and again Eurostar is not the same; there is no 'diversionary route' or alternative rail ticket acceptance. So you then have to reach out to airlines / ferry companies which is completely different and hope there is availability - one trainload is maybe 6-7 planes. Or allow people to take hotels. Which is broadly what the "dubious leaflet" suggests.

 

[Killingworth]

Eh? All London airports are easily accessible from St Pancras. You don't need to leave the intermediate airport although you may choose to if you've got time. Similarly, you can easily get to anywhere in Paris from any of the Paris airports .

But that's not quite what you previously said.

That's just one possibility. Consider how many cities have direct flights to both London and Paris. You could connect through nearly all major cities in Europe and many smaller cities.

Everyone doesn't start or finish their journey in London or Paris.

Whatever, apart from the inevitable chaos and congestion most should be able to get away tomorrow, one way or another.

Having used ferries of all types many times and only used the Shuttle once and Eurostar once from Ashford I'm not encouraged to try it again.

 

[johncrossley]

Everyone doesn't start or finish their journey in London or Paris.

We are talking about people at St Pancras or Gare du Nord unable to get on Eurostar. Obviously in many cases the airport will be *easier* to get to than St Pancras which will be handy if they haven't left home yet.

 

[popeter45]

if being honest getting concerned for my eurostar trip in febuary with 2 full clousures in just over a week as have the nightjet to vienna to catch for onwards connections
even with the 9:30 departure if issue happen by then i would have zero ability to get anything else

 

[blueberry11]

Would you be able to cancel/change/refund your UK train tickets in this case if you book the UK and the Eurostar leg separately? Say for example, would you be able to refund the costs from (London) Kings Cross/St Pancras International to Cambridge. The UK ticket might have been a fixed (advance) or flexible (off peak and anytime). In this case, you used Greater Anglia or Thameslink website to book the UK leg, but used Eurostar for Eurostar leg.

I definitely know that you can get a refund without admin fees if your UK train has been cancelled or delayed by at least some 15 mins, but what if the UK trains ran normally, but the Eurostar didn't. ]

 

[43096]

All TOCs have a list of contingency plans (agreed with mutual operators and NR) for when infrastructure is not available.

They do, and it's usually...
1. Tell the punters not to travel
2. Give up and go home

 

[renegademaster]

The only immediate realistic way around problems like this it seems is for Eurostar to have a huge insurance fund to cover commercial flights , possibly under convulted routes , back to London/Paris, or some kind of extra vouchers to stay where you are. Problem with that is it will probably push up fares and push people back onto plans.

 

[D6130]

When we were stranded in Paris by the Eurotunnel strike at the beginning of this month Eurostar arranged a hotel for us. Unfortunately the only departure the following morning with available seats was the 07 01....so we only managed five hours sleep.

 

[Meerkat]

They return to Lille.

That’s brutal! Imagine getting to just outside St Pancras then being taken back under the Channel, after going past three stations!

 

[vinnym70]

That’s brutal! Imagine getting to just outside St Pancras then being taken back under the Channel, after going past three stations!

That really puts being turfed off the Jubilee line at North Greenwich when you want to be north of the river into perspective.

I really don't see how Eurostar can do much else. Like everyone has commented, each train carries a significant number of passengers so any other mode of transport substituted is going to struggle, especially at short notice - AND, especially at this time of year.

Remember most TOCs struggle to source buses for substitute services on the most mundane of routes at short notice so any fantasies about being able to magic-up charter flights are just that - fantasies. Should Eurostar have a plan in place? Of course they should but I fail to see what that plan looks like, how it is managed and how it can be turned on at short notice - again, especially at this time of year.

 

[Samzino]

Surprised no one egresses at the prospect of heading back to France after an already long thru the tunnel to be quite Frank.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

All this and while fares are still about ten times what I can get on Ryanair, Wizz or easyJet on a good day. Expensive fares and no coverage should you need to fly as no trains can run. It’s no wonder people do choose to fly.

 

[fandroid]

All this and while fares are still about ten times what I can get on Ryanair, Wizz or easyJet on a good day. Expensive fares and no coverage should you need to fly as no trains can run. It’s no wonder people do choose to fly.

But they don't, do they? The chaos at St Pancras is strong evidence that people choose the train when it's available.

When we were stranded in Paris by the Eurotunnel strike at the beginning of this month Eurostar arranged a hotel for us. Unfortunately the only departure the following morning with available seats was the 07 01....so we only managed five hours sleep.

I've had much worse when my flights have been disrupted requiring an overnight hotel stay.

Eurostar is showing a full set of departures today

 

[rd749249]

Maybe for the speculative discussion forum:

1. Reopen Ebbsfleet International for Eurostar services.

2. Build a connection from the North Kent Line to Ebbsfleet International for alternative connections to London. There’s already a junction on the running line just before Northfleet going that way.

3. Extend Elizabeth Line trains to the new Ebbsfleet terminus.

Sorted

 

[a_c_skinner]

I am not a rail professional nor am I ever likely to use the Chunnel, having lost my taste for travel abroad but it does seem foolish that Ashford isn't useable at fairly short notice. As above, a contingency, though perhaps not for a 24 hour block, it wouldn't be a plan that could be stood up at a moment's notice.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Maybe for the speculative discussion forum:

1. Reopen Ebbsfleet International for Eurostar services.

2. Build a connection from the North Kent Line to Ebbsfleet International for alternative connections to London. There’s already a junction on the running line just before Northfleet going that way.

3. Extend Elizabeth Line trains to the new Ebbsfleet terminus.

Sorted

No, Not sorted as the vast majority of Eurostar’s fleet are continental loading gauge so don’t fit on the ‘conventional’ network.

 

[zwk500]

Maybe for the speculative discussion forum:

1. Reopen Ebbsfleet International for Eurostar services.

Would be massively under capacity for such an event.

2. Build a connection from the North Kent Line to Ebbsfleet International for alternative connections to London. There’s already a junction on the running line just before Northfleet going that way.

No, there are some sidings off Northfleet but the alignment is all pointing the wrong way. And eurostar doesn't have third rail any more.

3. Extend Elizabeth Line trains to the new Ebbsfleet terminus.

Elizabeth line trains don't have third rail shoes.

Sorted

So no.

I am not a rail professional nor am I ever likely to use the Chunnel, having lost my taste for travel abroad but it does seem foolish that Ashford isn't useable at fairly short notice. As above, a contingency, though perhaps not for a 24 hour block, it wouldn't be a plan that could be stood up at a moment's notice.

Which scenarios do you have in mind for Ashford to be maintained at what level of readiness, and how often do these occur to make the costs of such maintenance worthwhile?

All this talk of maintaining entire backup stations when the most.cost effective answer is almost certainly related to the pipe that actually caused the issue in the first place.

 

[yorksrob]

If Ashford were open for day to day operations to the continent, its clear that it would have some capacity for contingency as well.

 

[djw]

Not sorted as the vast majority of Eurostar’s fleet are continental loading gauge so don’t fit on the ‘conventional’ network.

I cannot see any contingency plans requiring Eurostar to run off route being viable.

Most of the Eurostar stock is now class 374, which is out of gauge for anything other than the high-speed line. The remaining class 373s have no shoegear and the 750V DC equipment is likely to be unserviceable or has been removed entirely (I am unclear which, though as the intention was to decommission 750V DC capability permanently after HS1 opened in 2007 and considering the advanced age of the class 373 electrical equipment, bringing 750V DC back to usable condition is likely to be impractical). Route knowledge and paths to retain route knowledge for off-route running would probably be an issue even if sufficient 750V DC-capable stock that is in gauge for the conventional lines is available.

Perhaps the best option would be to make Ebbsfleet International or Ashford International available for Eurostar passengers (or at least make them usable at short notice), augmenting services on the conventional lines as far as possible to disperse Eurostar passengers when St Pancras International is out of action. However, the readiness costs are unlikely to be justifiable unless passenger demand justifies Eurostar stopping at Ebbsfleet or Ashford in normal service.

The only other alternative, which is more far-fetched, is putting passengers on coaches, driving them to Folkestone and running additional shuttles in the Eurostar Channel Tunnel slots. Considering the long-running availability issues for rail-replacement buses, this seems unlikely to work.

As others have pointed out, the costs of additional contingency will be reflected in ticket prices.

 

[yorksrob]

Ashford should be open to provide connections from East Kent and Sussex.

That it isn't is purely down to the commercial convenience of a foreign company

 

[Falcon1200]

If you are competent you organise it in detail in advance, with a contingency plan and roll it out when the merde hits the fan.

Separation of track and train makes this virtually imlossible

Not so, as @Horizon22 has said above. There are Contingency Plans, agreed between NR and the Train Operators, for both full and partial line blockages. However Eurostar, due to the nature of its service, is in a very different situation to any other operator.

It was so much better before Eurostar. There were so many ferry routes and walk on fares were affordable. There were so many alternatives in the event of disruption.

No it most certainly was not; I recall vividly being treated like dirt as a foot passenger on the ferries.

Except when there was fog on the channel - and Europe was cut off !

Or when a ferry capsized shortly after leaving port; Before that tragedy the ferry companies ran an anti-Channel Tunnel campaign calling themselves 'Flexilink', post Zeebrugge it seemed to disappear....

I really don't see how Eurostar can do much else.

Indeed, it seems to me the difficulties of dealing with Eurostar's UK terminal being unavailable for an entire day are being grossly underestimated. And, how often in the near 30 years Eurostar has been running, has either Waterloo or now St Pancras actually been closed?

 

[dk1]

Well done all involved for the resumption of international services today. Didn’t expect that.

 

[Killingworth]

Ashford should be open to provide connections from East Kent and Sussex.

That it isn't is purely down to the commercial convenience of a foreign company

Probably time for a new thread on that but Ashford was also a convenient option for people from further afield. The one time I used Eurostar I drove down from Sheffield in the evening, stayed in a handy and cheap hotel near Asford and caught an early morning Paris train to get maximum time in Paris before return the same day.

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Ashford should be open to provide connections from East Kent and Sussex.

That it isn't is purely down to the commercial convenience of a foreign company

Commercial convenience? You do realise if a commercial company looses money it can go bankrupt, nothing to do with ‘convenience’!!

The governments made it quite clear in Covid that Eurostar was a commercial not a public service so didn’t get the financial support other public services did. To this end Eurostar has decided it is not financially viable to serve Calais, Ashford or Ebbsfleet.

I don’t understand why you think a commercial company should be forced to loose money!? That isn’t how business works!

 

[island]

Would you be able to cancel/change/refund your UK train tickets in this case if you book the UK and the Eurostar leg separately? Say for example, would you be able to refund the costs from (London) Kings Cross/St Pancras International to Cambridge. The UK ticket might have been a fixed (advance) or flexible (off peak and anytime). In this case, you used Greater Anglia or Thameslink website to book the UK leg, but used Eurostar for Eurostar leg.

I definitely know that you can get a refund without admin fees if your UK train has been cancelled or delayed by at least some 15 mins, but what if the UK trains ran normally, but the Eurostar didn't. ]

There would be no entitlement to change free of charge in this scenario; it would be down to the goodwill of the TOCs.

The only immediate realistic way around problems like this it seems is for Eurostar to have a huge insurance fund to cover commercial flights

Someone posted upthread that on 12 hours’ notice and for a fat five figure sum you might be able to rustle up two 180-seat planes and crew which can run a rotation every four and a half hours all going well. In normal operations one to two 900-seat 374s an hour leave St Pancras. You can I am sure see how this fails to scale up, even before I begin to address paying for standby aircrew and departure slots at some of the world’s busiest airports.

, possibly under convulted routes , back to London/Paris, or some kind of extra vouchers to stay where you are.

Can you give an example of such a route? When answering, bear in mind 374s are out of gauge most anywhere in the UK except HS1, and 373s can’t run on 750V DC.

Problem with that is it will probably push up fares and push people back onto plans.

Well, exactly.

All this and while fares are still about ten times what I can get on Ryanair, Wizz or easyJet on a good day.

Not when you compare like with like. Ruinair don’t fly from St Pancras to Gare du Nord, they fly from Stansted to Beauvais (I haven’t bothered to check if they fly that exact route, I’m just citing it as the type of journey they run) and you spend 3-4 hours plus whatever multiple of the airfare to get to your actual destination.

Expensive fares and no coverage should you need to fly as no trains can run. It’s no wonder people do choose to fly.

Well clearly people choose the train more.

 

[johncrossley]

Not when you compare like with like. Ruinair don’t fly from St Pancras to Gare du Nord, they fly from Stansted to Beauvais (I haven’t bothered to check if they fly that exact route, I’m just citing it as the type of journey they run) and you spend 3-4 hours plus whatever multiple of the airfare to get to your actual destination.

Ryanair don't even operate between any London and Paris airports. The existence of Eurostar means that it is very difficult for low cost airlines to compete. You can fly from other British airports to Beauvais. There is easyJet from London to Paris but not to Brussels.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

I really don't see how Eurostar can do much else. Like everyone has commented, each train carries a significant number of passengers so any other mode of transport substituted is going to struggle, especially at short notice - AND, especially at this time of year.

With the benefit of not being caught up in it - it was "only" a day and a bit. It's hard to know what they can do about that. I think obvious mitigations are looking at how both bores of the Thames tunnel were affected at the same time, and possibly maintaining route knowledge for Ashford, as that is a reasonable size and a better place than Ebbsfleet to at least terminate a train, but then what do you do then? Impossible to have alternative through routes because of Victorian railway history, different electrification and the impossibility of going somewhere your driver hasn't trained for... These won't ever change for a day's disruption.

What they can do about their IT, policies and staff training are a different matter. I allowed myself an "only" earlier as I do know what it's like - I had two nights in Paris back in May when they went on strike (again). Because I had an Interrail reservation I couldn't change it through Eurostar (but the app looked like it was simply trying and timing-out) and I couldn't amend it from the other end either. Nobody was being let upstairs at the Gare du Nord so nobody to talk to and at the time the call centre was closed on Sundays, so Monday's trains all filled-up. However - I got excellent support when the call centre reopened and later by email, and while they wouldn't pay for a flight - luckily cheap - they did pay for the hotel and expenses, and would have refunded the fare if it had been a real ticket. I'm lucky I had enough money and an understanding employer, I don't underestimate the problems for families, especially. Eurostar have many excellent people, I think, but everything has to run smoothly.

 

[Man of Kent]

Is there anything that could be done to transfer some people to the ferries in these circumstances ?

SE website indicates that this has been done for some people:
Eurostar customers that have a confirmed booking with P&O between Dover and Calais, may travel on our trains to and from Dover until end of service on Monday.

 

[renegademaster]

The only immediate realistic way around problems like this it seems is for Eurostar to have a big insurance fund to cover commercial flights , possibly under convulted routes , back to London/Paris, or some kind of extra vouchers to stay where you are

There would be no entitlement to change free of charge in this scenario; it would be down to the goodwill of the TOCs.

Someone posted upthread that on 12 hours’ notice and for a fat five figure sum you might be able to rustle up two 180-seat planes and crew which can run a rotation every four and a half hours all going well. In normal operations one to two 900-seat 374s an hour leave St Pancras. You can I am sure see how this fails to scale up, even before I begin to address paying for standby aircrew and departure slots at some of the world’s busiest airports.

Can you give an example of such a route? When answering, bear in mind 374s are out of gauge most anywhere in the UK except HS1, and 373s can’t run on 750V DC.

Well, exactly.

Not when you compare like with like. Ruinair don’t fly from St Pancras to Gare du Nord, they fly from Stansted to Beauvais (I haven’t bothered to check if they fly that exact route, I’m just citing it as the type of journey they run) and you spend 3-4 hours plus whatever multiple of the airfare to get to your actual destination.

Well clearly people choose the train more.

I meant a fund to pay people to go on easyjet or whatever, possibly by say schipol etc

 

[yorksrob]

Commercial convenience? You do realise if a commercial company looses money it can go bankrupt, nothing to do with ‘convenience’!!

The governments made it quite clear in Covid that Eurostar was a commercial not a public service so didn’t get the financial support other public services did. To this end Eurostar has decided it is not financially viable to serve Calais, Ashford or Ebbsfleet.

I don’t understand why you think a commercial company should be forced to loose money!? That isn’t how business works!

It's a state owned enterprise and will be subject to the strategic requirements of its owners.

It just so happens that our particular state has divested itself of its stake along with any part of its strategic decision making.